Monday, August 29, 2005

Welcome to my Quest for Coffee. It started about four years ago when a friend from church gave me a small coffee plant. It floundered for a couple of years in my kitchen. I was never really sure how to care for it, but somehow managed to keep it alive. I would occasionally look online or in a coffee book for some hints to its care. I never found much that was helpful. I almost killed it by accident once. After a major ice storm and power outage, I left it in my house overnight. It got down to 45 degrees, and really crippled the plant. I really thought it was a goner. Somehow it survived.

A year or so later I moved it to the window sill in my office at work. The light was pretty good, and I noticed it more so it got more water. Funny thing....It started to grow. I would occasionally joke with co-workers that one day we would all enjoy a cup of coffee from it. I never really thought that would happen, but I am a hopeful person, so somewhere in the back of my mind I thought........maybe. I admit that I would occasionally fertilize it with Miracle Grow or some other conventional stuff. After Counter Culture Coffee (the roaster I work for) got certified organic I did start to feel a little guilty about it. We were once visited by a coffee farmer friend of ours who asked if it was organic. She was in the process of taking her farm organic, which takes three years. That was it....If she could do it with thousands of coffee plants, by God, I could do it with one. About the same time I decided to take the plant home to re-pot. What has happened to the plant in the year since I brought it home and went organic has simply astonished me. It has changed and grown so much that I am now CONVINCED that one day it will produce.

So I have decided to share this little coffee journey with any coffee freak or geek who may care. I am going to explain the process by which my plant has started to flourish, and I hope anyone who has insights will share them with me. I really believe that one day I will be able to harvest my little crop, process and roast the spoils, and enjoy a spot of coffee with some friends. Coffee is my job, as well as a way of life for me and millions of others. Join me if you will on this, my